Louisville mayor among 18 who want to limit use of food stamps to buy soda

Louisville Mayor Greg Fisher and 17 other mayors are urging Congress to restrict the use of food stamps to buy soda and other sugary drinks.

The group sent a letter to congressional leaders saying it's time to re-evaluate what's formally known as the Supplemental Nutrition Assiststance Program in the interest of fighting obesity and related diseases.

At KNM Food Mart, SNAP cards are a common form of payment, and according to the manager, another typical thing is what those customers buy: soda and other sugary drinks.

"If we open here for 24 hours, you're going to see it every five minutes," said KNM Food Mart manager Moe Schalesh.

But when he heard Fischer supports a push to make food stamps ineligible for buying those beverages, he wasn't on board.

"That's going to affect everybody from businesses to people by themselves, you know?" said Schalesh.

The letter sent to Congress said the SNAP program can do more to address obesity and diet-related diseases.

Dr. Brooke Sweeney said Louisville struggles with obesity, and there are links with poverty and especially ZIP code.

"It does seem like when you overlay what you could call a heat map, for example, that people talk about, and you overlay poverty, obesity, diabetes, hypertension, any of those, they look very similar," said Sweeney.

And she said the medical community has found a tight correlation between soda intake and weight gain.

Fischer released a statement, saying as Congress addresses SNAP benefits, he's concerned about the more than 130,000 Louisville families who rely on them.

Tomika Barnett said she's in favor of restrictions.

"There's so many obese children out here in Louisville that they drink whatever they want and it's not good for them," said Barnett. "We buy juices. My kids drink a lot of water."

But other people think it's not the government's place to decide what they drink.

"I buy soft drinks off my food stamps cause I'm a soft drink fanatic," said Deborah White, who opposes the limits. "I'm going to stay the same size whether I drink soft drinks or not. If it was a drug, I could understand that, but it's not a drug."

"If they're not buying sugary drinks, they're going to spend the money on some other items that have sugar in them, so what are you going to do? Trade off one for the other? That's how I see it," said Justine Baltimore, who opposes the limits.

The American Beverage Association said sugary drinks shouldn't be singled out as a cause of obesity.

It called obesity a complex health condition that affects Americans of all income levels.

In the letter to Congress, Fischer joined mayors from 17 other cities including New York, Los Angeles, Chicago, Philadelphia. St. Louis and Minneapolis.

Last year, more than 47 million Americans used food stamps.

The benefits can't go to buy alcohol, cigarettes, hot food and some other items.

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